Ed Carpenter survived a manic late restart at Texas to take his third IndyCar win, while Will Power stole second from Penske team-mate Juan Pablo Montoya at the final corner.
Power had been in command for virtually the entire race on Saturday evening, but Carpenter’s car had been steadily improving throughout the night and the owner-driver had caught the Australian with 60 laps to go.
A small bobble from Power was enough to allow Carpenter past, and quicker progress through lapped traffic allowed him to pull out a lead when the pair entered the pits for their final stop.
Quick service allowed Power to cut that gap in half as they rejoined the race, however in the process he was caught speeding in pitlane and forced to serve a drive-through.
His one saving grace was that so few cars were left on the lead lap that he was able to rejoin sixth, but after such dominant pace, it seemed like an opportunity wasted.
At that point, the top order was Carpenter leading by nearly 17 seconds from Montoya, Tony Kanaan, Scott Dixon, Simon Pagenaud and Power, and with only a handful of laps remaining, opportunities for any major changes seemed limited. And that was when Takuma Sato’s car caught fire and brought out the yellows.
Mindful of how hard Texas is on tyres over a full stint, both Pagenaud and Power opted to make an additional stop, giving themselves the opportunity to rejoin without losing a position, and take the restart with new rubber.
It worked. Pagenaud was momentarily baulked by the Ganassi drivers running two-wide but managed to pass both for fourth; Power did even better by outdragging Montoya out of the final corner for second.
“I screwed it up and got another drive-through,” Power said. “[Making that extra stop] was a great call. I just wanted to get back to second, and that was a great last lap.”
Montoya was slightly disappointed not to have also stopped during the final caution (“They told me to do what the leaders does… so I did what the leaders did”), and even more disappointed by what he thought was an illegal restart by Carpenter at the end.
But given that he had needed to make a stop for a puncture on the second lap, he was pleased to recover to the podium.
“Overall our car was amazing today,” he said. “We had a flat tyre and drive through the whole field, and that was fun. We’re getting there.”
For a race historically prone to cautions, Saturday’s outing was relatively clean.
Marco Andretti and Sato both triggered brief yellows when their engines exploded, with the other coming when Justin Wilson and Sebastien Bourdais collided at Turn 4 midway through the race in the only accident of the evening.
Results - 248 laps:
Pos Driver Team/Engine Time/Gap
1. Ed Carpenter Carpenter/Chevy 2h01m25.5758s
2. Will Power Penske/Chevy +0.5247s
3. Juan Pablo Montoya Penske/Chevy +0.5771s
4. Simon Pagenaud Schmidt/Honda +1.1514s
5. Scott Dixon Ganassi/Chevy +2.1510s
6. Tony Kanaan Ganassi/Chevy +2.4464s
7. Mikhail Aleshin Schmidt/Honda -1 lap
8. Helio Castroneves Penske/Chevy -1 lap
9. Ryan Briscoe Ganassi/Chevy -1 lap
10. Charlie Kimball Ganassi/Chevy -1 lap
11. Josef Newgarden Fisher/Honda -1 lap
12. Graham Rahal Rahal/Honda -2 laps
13. Carlos Munoz Andretti/Honda -3 laps
14. James Hinchcliffe Andretti/Honda -4 laps
15. Jack Hawksworth Herta/Honda -4 laps
16. Carlos Huertas Coyne/Honda -4 laps
17. Sebastian Saavedra KV/Chevy -4 laps
Retirements:
Takuma Sato Foyt/Honda 238 laps
Ryan Hunter-Reay Andretti/Honda 136 laps
Sebastien Bourdais KV/Chevy 118 laps
Justin Wilson Coyne/Honda 118 laps
Marco Andretti Andretti/Honda 3 laps
